


Plum Nothing

by amaradangeli



Series: We Made It [5]
Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Episode: s03e22 Nemesis, F/M, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-10
Updated: 2014-07-10
Packaged: 2018-02-08 07:14:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,639
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1931559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amaradangeli/pseuds/amaradangeli
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Trapped on a deserted planet while waiting to head back to the SGC, Sam and Jack have a personal discussion over some alien fruit.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Plum Nothing

**Author's Note:**

> Post-Nemesis
> 
> [](https://www.flickr.com/photos/semiresponsive1/35747237832/in/album-72157683563675853/)  
> Artwork by Samantha-Carter-is-my-muse

It’d been a long time since Edora and the following events that Sam still liked to gloss over even in her own mind.  It’d been a long time, even, since the colonel had shown up on her doorstop with a pie, an apology and some thoughts that the consumption of rest of the pie over a weekend didn’t even begin to help her decipher.  If they were home, she’d grab something unexpired out of the depths of her freezer and drive around aimlessly.  More often than not she’d get ahold of herself and find her way back home.  Sometimes, she landed on his doorstep and he’d look at her like she was a little pathetic, but he’d usher her into his kitchen, pour her a glass of wine, and cook her a meal like it was normal, what she did.

She, as well as anybody, knew that her actions were not at all normal.  She floundered between not understanding him at all and understanding him in a way that made her feel things she didn’t know how to deal with.  She’d always been a lone wolf – even when she was with someone. 

But there was no good way to tell him what was on her mind; not without changing their dynamic.  She didn’t think he’d dump her off the team for confessing what she was quickly becoming apt to describe as inappropriate emotions concerning him.  He was more likely to bumble uncomfortably and then pretend like he’d never heard it.  But, she could be wrong; he might be exactly the kind of man that dealt with sticky emotional situations by making them go away.

Except…he _had_ shown up on her doorstep with that pie.  And then there’d been that whole strange moment when they’d eaten it while sitting on the floor in her living room while sharing a spoon and that’s just _not_ the sort of thing someone did with their subordinate officer even if the subordinate officer _did_ initiate it.  So maybe there was something going on inside him, too.

Either way, after the pie and the emotional penance she’d made him pay, Sam was wary about forking over a handful of native fruit on the planet they’d inhabit for the rest of the week.  She’d been showing up with food long enough now that he’d understand what was happening.  Well, as much as either of them understood what was really happening.

He looked at her a little strangely when she set the three small, round fruits onto his palm.

She stood next to him where he was seated on the bank of a small pond watching the sunset.  She shifted from one foot to the other to expel a little of her nervous energy.

Finally he looked from the fruit to her face.  “Carter, I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but I don’t exactly have a fully stocked kitchen here.  And, even if I did, what am I supposed to do with three alien plums?”

She shrugged.  “You’ve done more with less.”

“Yeah,” he paused and she couldn’t help but wonder if it was for dramatic effect.  “Somebody needs to teach you how to grocery shop.”

“I don’t cook, sir.”

“I’ve noticed.”  He started spinning the fruit in his hand like Baoding balls.  “Where’s Teal’c?”

“Bathing, I think.”  He had asked for privacy and set off in the direction of the warm springs they’d discovered on their second day.  He could be doing any number of things.  Sam stuck with the bathing idea.

“Sir—“

He cut her off with a quiet interjection. “That’s not how this is supposed to go.”

“I’m sorry?”

“You’re supposed to get whatever it is off your chest before you go back to treating me like I’m just the colonel.”

“ _Just_ the colonel?”

He huffed and looked like he was about to say something but then changed his mind.

“I owe you an apology.”

“For what?  Disobeying my order and getting yourself and Teal’c into a mess I’d ordered you out of?”

She was momentarily taken aback.  Considering their success, she didn’t think he’d be mad about that.  But that wasn’t the point.  That wasn’t the point at all.  Hell, until he’d brought it up, she hadn’t known what the point was either.  Suddenly, it was quite clear.  “You really don’t have much faith in me, do you?”

The way his eyebrows climbed his forehead was almost comical as he turned his body towards her.  She towered over him, standing the way she was, and she couldn’t decide if it was really enough upper hand to continue the thought the way his face was imploring her to.  “Excuse me?” he finally said when it was clear she was raging an internal war regarding whether or not to continue speaking.

“You know, it was really…” she clamped her jaws shut and breathed for a few moments.  It took a lot for her to ask him, “Permission to speak freely, sir?”

He deflated a little and she realized he’d thought they were in whatever little safe zone they’d created for each other and that the realization that they weren’t had stung him a little.  “Okay,” he said slowly.  “Go ahead, Major.”

She barreled ahead before she lost her nerve or the permission to share it.  “It was really fucking insulting that you didn’t think, not even for a _moment_ , that I’d figure out how to get you home.”

He opened his mouth to speak but she forged right ahead.

“And then you go out of your way to hurt me – not Major Carter, _me_ , Sam – when what you could have done, _should_ have done, was level with me.  Orders or no.  I’m your second in command.  I’m your _friend_.  And we…” They what?  She didn’t really know.  “You could have trusted me.  You _should_ trust me.”

She took a step toward him and it forced him to lean back a little to look up at her.  That was good.  Putting him slightly off balance helped her feel like she was leveling the playing field.

“And then, as soon as the Asgard asked, you were going to _blow yourself up_. Do you know how crazy that is?  You point blank _told_ me not come help you.  I’m your second in command!” She said again as if it were some kind of mantra.  It was at that point she realized she was yelling at him.  “I blow shit up, _sir,_ ” she spit the honorific out as a sibilant epithet, “and I’m good at it.  But rather than ask me for my help, rather than depend on me to do my _job,_ you make some boneheaded decision to _die_?”

He set the fruit down on the soft grass next to him and leaned back onto his palms so he was looking her dead in the eye.  “The plan wasn’t to die.  The plan was to not take you with me if I did.”

She crossed her arms over her chest and scowled at him but he continued, unfazed.  “And, yes, _Major_.  My orders were from the _General_.  Covert means covert.  It means you don’t tell anybody.  No matter how much you—” he cut himself off.  He made an angry sort of face that looked like he was biting the inside of his cheek.  He rose to his feet, more gracefully than she’d have thought he could.  He had several inches on her but never used his size against her – not ever before – not until he leaned into her personal space and forced her to look _up_ into his flashing eyes.  “And I thought we’d solved the whole Edora thing, already!”

“Me too,” she shouted at him.  This wasn’t the first time they’d raised their voices in frustration and anger with one another.  It felt _good_.

“Well, apparently not!”

“Why didn’t you think I would save you?” she spit at him fully cognizant that the last time she’d asked him a similar question she’d couched her injury in the safety of the team.  She no longer felt that need.

“Carter, do you have any idea how _impossible_ what you did was?  You created technology other scientists on Earth are still dreaming about.  I know you’re good.  How the hell was I supposed to know you were _that_ good?”

“Because it was _you_ , you son of a bitch,” she shouted at him like he was stupid.  “Because it was _you_ ,” she said again, quietly, with revelation in her voice she wasn’t prepared to examine too closely.

He looked at her intently, searching her face for something he couldn’t seem to find.  “Carter, are we going to have a problem here?”

She could feel the blood drain out of her face then rush back to flush her cheeks.  That was the second time someone had asked her that question about him.  The first time she’d answered it, she’d lied through her teeth, certain she’d get herself together when she was faced with the man rather than the memory.  She lied through her teeth again, for reasons she was only partly clear on at the moment but that would become clearer when she wasn’t stranded on a deserted almost-paradise planet.  “No, sir.  No problem.”

She wanted very badly to believe she saw what she thought she saw flit across his face.  She wanted to believe she saw a little disappointment there underneath his clear relief.

He put his hands on his hips and cast his eyes around until they landed on the fruit.  He leaned over and picked it up, held it in his hand in the space between them.  “You know I can’t make anything with these, right?”

She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.  She damn sure didn’t ask him if he meant the fruit or the brewing emotions.  Either way, she wasn’t getting anything.  Not that evening.

 

 


End file.
